The Truckers' Protests Have Opened the Door for the Radical Right February 16, 2022. As carried in Foreign Affairs. For the last three weeks, Canada’s capital has been occupied by a swarm of angry truckers and anti-vaccine protesters. This self-styled “freedom convoy” has intimidated Ottawa’s pedestrians, kept its residents awake at night with incessant horn …
Many Americans Deeply Distrust Experts. So Will They Ignore Warnings about the Coronavirus?
March 19, 2020 As carried by the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog here. Republican voters are still far more likely than Democrats to believe the coronavirus pandemic has been exaggerated, egged on by Fox News and even Republican office holders. That’s true even after Trump’s emergency measures. But partisanship isn’t the only barrier to getting …
The American Mainstream News Media May Be More Biased Than We Think
As carried on LSE's USAPP blog, February 8, 2019 Since even before his election over two years ago, President Donald Trump and his Republican surrogates have made a habit of responding to critical news coverage with allegations that mainstream press reports are “fake news.” This allegation, regardless of how often it is repeated, has been …
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Are There Any Benefits to Divided Parliamentary Parties?
As carried by the Democratic Audit on February 7, 2019 As hard as it might be to imagine with the recent goings on of UK politics, but parliamentary parties are typically highly disciplined operations. Historically MPs only infrequently cross-party lines in sizeable numbers to vote against their party’s position on matters before Parliament. This is …
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An Inconvenient Truth about An Inconvenient Truth
(with Dominik Stecula) As published in The Conversation August 16, 2017, and picked up by Newsweek . Al Gore has a follow-up to his blockbuster documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth. However, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power was greeted with far less fanfare than the original. This is not surprising given how the first movie …
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The Media and the CPC Leadership Race – Update
In November, I published a column in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog about the media's coverage of the Conservative party's leadership race. In it, I argued that the they were granting disproportionate coverage to Kellie Leitch due to her embrace of a controversial policy of "values screening" for perspective immigrants. In doing so, the …
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Here’s how Canadian news media created a ‘Trump of the North’
As carried in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog (December 14, 2016): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/14/heres-how-canadian-news-media-created-a-trump-of-the-north/ Donald Trump’s election has left political pundits, data journalists and political scientists scrambling to explain what made his victory possible. Particularly puzzling is Trump’s triumph in the Republican primaries despite widespread opposition by the party establishment. Some believe Trump prevailed because of …
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Eric Merkley 